Jan. 27: The over-confidence and dismissive attitude of the Cricket Association of Bengal over the renovation of Eden Gardens for the World Cup came home to roost with the International Cricket Council stating on Thursday that the venue had not made enough progress to host a World Cup game.
Accordingly, the ICC said, it had been decided to shift the first match here, on February 27 between India and England, to another venue. This followed an inspection on Tuesday by an ICC team including tournament director Ratnakar Shetty.
“Following the inspection tour, the three Sri Lanka venues — Colombo, Hambantota and Pallekele — as well as Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai have been approved subject to minor finishing work being completed within specified time frames not exceeding 14 days.
“The expert report, however, determined that Eden Gardens would not be ready within an acceptable time frame to host the India vs England match on February 27. Regrettably, Eden has not made sufficient progress to justify the level of confidence required to confirm that the venue would be ready in good time. This was no easy decision to take and while it is most unfortunate, it is absolutely necessary.
“The inspection team drew on the knowledge and experience of some of the leading experts in the field of stadium and ground preparation and the view was that Eden Gardens would not be ready by the 27 February,” an ICC statement said.
On Tuesday, the ICC delegation having made a final inspection of the Eden, cited the following issues — an inappropriate sightscreen, lack of cleanliness, improper positioning of the radio commentary room and unfinished work in blocks ‘B’ and ‘C. The writing for the CAB was thus on the wall.
Importantly, the sport’s parent body also clearly mentioned that matters like cricket operations, media, broadcast and sponsorship facilities were neither finalised nor confirmed by the state association.
CAB officials, on their part, continue to claim that no official communication has been received so far in this respect. “We haven’t been informed officially of the shift. In fact, we have heard it from the media. Nevertheless, we are pretty confident of hosting the game since there’s still a month left to go,” said joint secretary Biswarup Dey.
“Only thing we can say is that it won’t take very long to solve the issues ICC has pointed out,” he added. CAB president Jagmohan Dalmiya had repeatedly overruled deadlines for completion of the renovation work, but the ICC clearly felt that Eden was unable to meet the final deadline of January 25.
In addition, a CAB insider who is known to be a confidant of Dalmiya said that the ICC had sent an e-mail specifying that the “height of the sightscreen should be minimum 20 feet.” A week went by after that and the sightscreen was still left unattended to.